Being a collection of thoughts, observations, comments, opinions and views on investing--especially for the long term.
Disclaimer: This blog is not intended as professional advice. Please seek your own professional advisor who can properly review your particular circumstances. The author disclaims any liability, loss, or risk taken by individuals who directly or indirectly act on the information contained herein. All readers must accept full responsibility for their use of this material.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

I'm new to investing. Is there a simple place for me to start?

Reader's Question: I'm really new to investing. Do you have a simple place I can start or an article you've written that you can point me to?

Early this year, I assembled the main threads of my thinking on investing into a five-part blog series:

In this series, I outline the basic methodology behind my own approach to investing, explaining why saving, setting realistic targets, buying equities, watching expenses and staying in the game are so critical to long-term success. As an investor, my own objective is to implement a sustainable investment system that works for perpetuity and properly sets the stage for managing whatever wealth remains in my portfolio when my time on our planet expires.

In investing, as with most endeavors in life, I believe that focus and determination can carry one a long way. Since global equity markets tend to exhibit strong secularity (i.e., long-run returns are very significantly positive), really, time is on your side if you have sufficient patience and level-headedness to stick with it.

As a retired investor I found myself in a "big idea" moment a few weeks ago. I had been diligently performing my daily duty of charting each of my 25 or so stocks, ETF's and Mutual Funds. As the words "there's got to be a better way" were muttered to myself, it occurred to me that perhaps it would be worth my while to build a website that simplified the process and offered a nice "dashboard" for my review each day. My partner went to work and lo and behold - www.investordashboards.com was born. If you read this, please check it out and give us some feedback. We are going to leave the site free for anyone who finds it useful!